DENTAL FLUOROSIS:
Smile, please -but don't say 'Cheese'

George Glasser and Jane Jones

ABSTRACT
At least THREE MILLION people in England suffer from dental fluorosis. The
Government's York Review on water fluoridation showed that about THREE
QUARTERS OF A MILLION people have dental fluorosis which is "of
concern". No studies have ever been done on the psychological damage
caused by fluorosed (stained) teeth. A 1998 survey showed that people with
defective teeth are more likely to experience social and employment
discrimination. Half of the respondents saw unattractive teeth as a sign of
poor personal hygiene. International scientists concur that dental fluorosis
is a FORESEEABLE event from fluoridating drinking water, and the victims are
at increased risk for psychological and behavioural problems and difficulties.
This can be the subject of litigation against those who promote and implement
water fluoridation.

Those involved in the promotion and
implementation of water fluoridation are vulnerable to significant legal
liability. Reparations for the foreseeable consequence
of dental disfigurement are likely to be further compounded by punitive
damages which can be awarded for subsequent psychological pain and suffering
experienced by the Plaintiff. (1)

"After a handshake, a friendly smile is
one of the most important elements in creating a good first impression.
However, it's hard to smile if you're self-conscious about teeth that are
yellow or stained." (School of Dental Medicine at the University of New
York). (2)

A 1998 survey by the American Academy of
Cosmetic Dentistry showed that:

more than 92% of adults agree that an
attractive smile is an important social asset;

85% believe that an unattractive smile makes
a person less appealing to the opposite sex;

75% believe that an unattractive smile can
be detrimental to a person's chances of career success; and

half of the respondents see unattractive
teeth as a sign of poor personal hygiene.

Overall, the survey found that people with
unattractive smiles are more likely to experience social and employment
discrimination.

According to the UK Government's systematic
scientific review on water fluoridation, carried out at York University, about
forty eight per cent of people living in fluoridated areas are affected by
dental fluorosis.

In England, this translates to nearly three
million individuals who have fluorosed teeth to some
degree. For three quarters of a million
people , dental fluorosis is of the "moderate to
severe" degree. The condition is characterised by white chalky spots or
brown staining and pitting of their teeth. (3)

In 1985, following a review commissioned by the
United States Environmental Protection Agency, an independent panel of
behavioural scientists found that people with moderate to severe fluorosis are
at increased risk of experiencing psychological and behavioural problems. (4)(5)

People afflicted with dental fluorosis are more
likely to experience discrimination from an early age. Teachers often prejudge
a child's intellect and personality based on appearance alone. These children
are more often likely to be considered as troublemakers or non-scholars. Such
biassed views reinforce a negative stereotype, with self-fulfilling results. (6)

Thousands of official documents confirm that
artificial fluoridation of drinking water can, and does produce the
"aesthetically objectionable" effect of moderate to severe dental
fluorosis. The psychological damage suffered by millions of victims of dental
fluorosis is given little attention.

Moreover, in the persistent drive to extend
fluoridation schemes across the country, dental and public health officials
dismiss this distressing condition as an acceptable public health trade-off,
insisting that "the benefits outweigh the risks."

The Department of Health asserts that water
fluoridation is the most cost-effective means of reducing tooth decay.
However, the Department turns a blind eye to the huge financial burden on
individual patients who require remedial treatment for unsightly fluorosed
teeth.

Cosmetic veneers provide an extremely lucrative
spin-off for the privatised dental profession. In England, charges range from
£150 to £450 per tooth and repeat treatments are required every five or six
years throughout the victim's life. People who cannot afford cosmetic veneers,
professional bleaching or micro-abrasive treatment have no option but to live
with their fluoride-damaged teeth and the attendant social stigma and
psychological trauma.

While the York Review panel of experts
acknowledged that dental fluorosis affects up to 48% of the British
population, they signally failed to address the economic, social and
psychological impact on the victims.

However, more perceptive scientists and
dentists are sensitive to the social stigma of dental fluorosis.

Irish dental surgeon, Donal McAuley, wrote
in the British Medical Journal: "Fifty per cent of our population has
dental fluorosis. I see patients daily in my surgery who are damaged by
fluoride. They do not smile, they are teased at school, and they are
traumatised by having 'rotten' teeth." Drinking water in Ireland is
artificially fluoridated. (7)

In 1994, a Kenyan survey noted that between
60 and 84% of respondents viewed dental fluorosis as an important problem
because of its unfavourable effects on an individual's personality." (8)

A later Canadian study examined the
influence of fluoride exposures on the widespread "aesthetic
problems" caused by dental fluorosis. It acknowledged that forty six
percent (nearly half) of the participants had dental fluorosis. The effect
on personal appearance, as defined by the participants themselves, was
more prevalent in the over-11 age group. (9)

The trauma experienced by young people with
dental fluorosis is depressingly apparent in a South African study
conducted by the NW Province Department of Health: "The psychological
effect in terms of the unsightly, brown-stained teeth, has induced the
adolescents with fluorosed teeth to demand that these teeth be extracted
and replaced with dentures." (10)

"The prevalence of dental fluorosis
appears to be on the increase. Although in its mild form the condition is
not considered to be of cosmetic significance, the more severe forms can
cause great psychological distress to the affected individual." (11)(12)

An Australian Health Department analysed
society's perceptions of dental fluorosis, based on over 3,000 responses.
Lay and professional observers recognised that higher degrees of fluorosis
increasingly embarrass the child. All observers, except the dentists, felt
that the more severe fluorosis indicated neglect on the part
of the child . (13)

Egyptian researchers observed that friends
and relatives ridicule the patient by inferring that these stains are
associated with smoking and/or poor oral hygiene. They noted that such
personal remarks lead an individual into severe psychological depression. (14)

For thirty years, until she discovered the
scientific literature, Anita Knight endured a private agony over her son's
lack of self esteem and emotional problems. "I was outraged," she
said. "It was immediately obvious to me that so-called scientists and
public health officials had arrogantly and callously written off my son as a
laboratory rat in their inhuman experiment."

Dental fluorosis is extensively described by
toxicologists as the first visible sign of chronic fluoride
poisoning . The result of over-exposure to fluoride was well
understood by the dental profession until the early 1950s.

Some prominent researchers have pointed out
that dentists who knowingly promote treatment which leads to dental fluorosis
place themselves at risk of litigation. (15)
All researchers and government agencies acknowledge that dental fluorosis is a
foreseeable , "objectionable cosmetic
effect" that can and does occur following artificial fluoridation.

Despite anti-discrimination laws, the
unattractive appearance of people with dental fluorosis can severely limit
their academic performance, employment choices and future prospects. Teeth
which appear "dirty" can seriously affect an individual's ability to
interact and form relationships with members of the opposite sex, leading to
exclusion, loneliness and long-term depression. Such conditions can
precipitate feelings of frustration and anger which could, in turn, lead to
criminal behaviour.

Promoters of water fluoridation are aware of,
but do not warn the public about the foreseeable adverse effect of dental
fluorosis or the foreseeable psychological damage
which can and does occur to subsections of the population. When
a plaintiff suffers harm, whether physical or psychological, it is only
necessary for him to show the court that the injury was reasonably foreseeable
. (1)

Meanwhile, three million English cases of
dental fluorosis are officially ignored and three quarters of a million people
have been severely, and foreseeably damaged.

Mullenix is also one more casualty of the
fluoride wars. She had nothing todo with the fluoride issue originally, but became
involved as part of herwork. All she “knew” about fluoride
when she started was that it wassupposedly good for your teeth. She was not
excited about performing theresearch, but was doing it because she was asked.
Her research results werepublished in Neurotoxicology and Teratology
(Vol.17, No. 2, pp.169-177,1995), the leading scientific journal in the
field. Before that paper waspublished, she presented her findings at the
National Institute of DentalResearch (NIDR) in Maryland, a division of the
National Institute of Health(NIH). When she arrived at the NIDR, in her
words, "I had no idea what I wasgetting into. I walked into the main corridors
there and all over the wallswas 'The Miracle of Fluoride'. That was my first
real kick-in-the-pants asto what was actually going on." She said
that the display ridiculed thepeople against fluoridation. "I thought, 'Oh
great!' Here's the main NIHhospital talking about the 'Miracle of Fluoride'
and I'm giving a seminar tothe NIDR telling them that fluoride is neurotoxic!"[48]
After herpresentation to the NIDR, she met with toothpaste
representatives who askedher if she was saying that their products lowered
the IQs of children, andMullenix responded, “basically, yes.” That
marked the end of her career.

When she excitedly announced to her employers
that her paper on the

intelligence of rats was being published, three
days later she was fired.

Right after she was fired, her former employers
asked her which journal was

going to publish her work. By that time, she
realized that they wanted to

block its publication, so she did not tell them.
Subsequently, funding has

dried up for that kind of research, though
immediately after Mullenix was

fired, Colgate gave a $250,000 grant to Forsyth
(for a job well done?). The

unique equipment Mullenix developed to test rat
intelligence was mysteriously

destroyed before she could recover it.

Dr. Mullenix was then given an unfunded research
position at Children's

Hospital in Boston, but with no equipment or
money. Mullenix said, "The

people at Children's Hospital, for heaven's sake,
came right out and said

they were scared because they knew how important
the fluoride issue was…Even

at Forsyth they told me I was endangering funds
for the institution if I

published that information."[49]

Mullenix has since applied to the NIH for a
research grant to further her

research, and was turned down. The NIH told her
that fluoride had no central

nervous system effects, period. How the NIH
concluded that, when about the

only published research shows deleterious
effects, is curious indeed. The

work Mullenix did, as well as other recent
studies[50], has shown that the

fluoride ion is particularly damaging to the
brain's hippocampal region,

which is its learning center.

Mullenix’ fate is common, and my work documents
many instances of scientists

and others arriving at the “wrong” answers,
and having their careers

destroyed. Other scientists who had their careers
ruined for coming up with

Some fifty years after the United States began adding
fluoride to public water supplies to reduce cavities in children’s teeth,
declassified government documents are shedding new light on the roots of that
still controversial public health measure, revealing a surprising connection
between fluoride and the dawning of the nuclear age.

Today, two thirds of U.S. public drinking water is
fluoridated. Many municipalities still resist the practice, disbelieving the
government’s assurances of safety .

Since the days of World War II, when this nation
prevailed by building the world’s first

atomic bomb, U.S. public health leaders have
maintained that low doses of fluoride are safe for people, and good for
children’s teeth.

That safety verdict should now be re-examined in the
light of hundreds of once-secret

World War II documents obtained by Griffiths and
Bryson—including declassified papers of the Manhattan Project, the U.S.
military group that built the atomic bomb.

Fluoride was the key chemical in atomic bomb
production, according to the documents.

Massive quantities of fluoride—millions of
tons—were essential for the manufacture of

bomb-grade uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons
throughout the Cold War. One of the most toxic chemicals known, fluoride rapidly
emerged as the leading chemical health hazard of the U.S. atomic bomb
program—both for workers and for nearby communities, the documents reveal.

Other revelations include:

Much of the original proof that fluoride is safe for
humans in low doses was generated by A-bomb program scientists, who had been
secretly ordered to provide "evidence useful in litigation" against
defense contractors for fluoride injury to citizens. The first lawsuits against
the U.S. A-bomb program were not over radiation, but over fluoride damage, the
documents show.

Human studies were required. Bomb program researchers
played a leading role in the design and implementation of the most extensive
U.S. study of the health effects of fluoridating public drinking
water—conducted in Newburgh, New York from 1945 to 1956. Then, in a classified
operation code-named "Program F," they secretly gathered and analysed
blood and tissue samples from Newburgh citizens, with the cooperation of State
Health Department personnel.

The original secret version—obtained by these
reporters—of a 1948 study published by Program F scientists in the Journal of
the American Dental Association shows that evidence of adverse health effects
from fluoride was censored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) --
considered the most powerful of Cold War agencies—for reasons of national
security.

The bomb program’s fluoride safety studies were
conducted at the University of

Rochester, site of one of the most notorious human
radiation experiments of the Cold War, in which unsuspecting hospital patients
were injected with toxic doses of radioactive plutonium.

The fluoride studies were conducted with the same
ethical mind-set, in which "national security" was paramount.

The U.S. government’s conflict of interest—and its
motive to prove fluoride "safe"—has not until now been made clear to
the general public in the furious debate over water fluoridation since the
1950’s, nor to civilian researchers and health professionals, or journalists.

The declassified documents resonate with a growing
body of scientific evidence, and a chorus of questions, about the health effects
of fluoride in the environment.

Human exposure to fluoride has mushroomed since World
War II, due not only to fluoridated water and toothpaste, but to environmental
pollution by major industries from aluminum to pesticides: Fluoride is a
critical industrial chemical.

The impact can be seen, literally, in the smiles of
our children. Large numbers of U.S. young people—up to 80 percent in some
cities—now have dental fluorosis, the first visible sign of excessive fluoride
exposure, according to the U.S. National Research Council. (The signs are
whitish flecks or spots, particularly on the front teeth, or dark spots or
stripes in more severe cases.)

Less-known to the public is that fluoride also
accumulates in bones—"The teeth are windows to what’s happening in the
bones," explains Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at

St. Lawrence (N.Y.) University. In recent years,
pediatric bone specialists have expressed alarm about an increase in stress
fractures among U.S. young people. Connett and other scientists are concerned
that fluoride—linked to bone damage by studies since the 1930’s -- may be a
contributing factor. The declassified documents add urgency: Much of the
original proof that low-dose fluoride is safe for children’s bones came from
U.S. bomb program scientists, according to this investigation.

Now, researchers who have reviewed these declassified
documents fear that Cold War

national security considerations may have prevented
objective scientific evaluation of vital public health questions concerning
fluoride.

Information was buried," concludes Dr. Phyllis
Mullenix, former head of toxicology at

Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, and now a critic of
fluoridation. Animal studies Mullenix and co-workers conducted at Forsyth in the
early 1990’s indicated that fluoride was a powerful central nervous system
(CNS) toxin, and might adversely affect human brain functioning,

even at low doses. (New epidemiological evidence from
China adds support, showing a correlation between low-dose fluoride exposure and
diminished I.Q. in children.) Mullenix’s results were published in 1995, in a
reputable peer-reviewed scientific journal.

During her investigation, Mullenix was astonished to
discover there had been virtually no previous U.S. studies of fluoride’s
effects on the human brain. Then, her application for a grant to continue her
CNS research was turned down by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH),
where an NIH panel, she says, flatly told her that "fluoride does not have
central nervous system effects."

Declassified documents of the U.S. atomic-bomb program
indicate otherwise. An April 29, 1944 Manhattan Project memo reports:
"Clinical evidence suggests that uranium hexafluoride may have a rather
marked central nervous system effect.... It seems most likely that the F [code
for fluoride] component rather than the T [code for uranium] is the causative
factor."

The memo—stamped "secret"—is addressed
to the head of the Manhattan Project’s Medical Section, Col. Stafford Warren.
Colonel Warren is asked to approve a program of animal research on CNS effects:
"Since work with these compounds is essential, it will be necessary to know
in advance what mental effects may occur after exposure... This is important not
only to protect a given individual, but also to prevent a confused workman from
injuring others by improperly performing his duties."

On the same day, Colonel Warren approved the CNS
research program. This was in 1944, at the height of the Second World War and
the nation’s race to build the world’s first atomic bomb. For research on
fluoride’s CNS effects to be approved at such a momentous time, the supporting
evidence set forth in the proposal forwarded along with the memo must have been
persuasive.

The proposal, however, is missing from the files of
the U.S. National Archives. "If you find the memos, but the document they
refer to is missing, it’s probably still classified," said Charles
Reeves, chief librarian at the Atlanta branch of the U.S. National Archives and
Records Administration, where the memos were found. Similarly, no results of the
Manhattan Project’s fluoride CNS research could be found in the files.

After reviewing the memos, Mullenix declared herself
"flabbergasted." She went on, "How could I be told by NIH that
fluoride has no central nervous system effects when these documents were sitting
there all the time?" She reasons that the Manhattan Project did do fluoride
CNS studies—"that kind of warning, that fluoride workers might be a
danger to the bomb program by improperly performing their duties—I can’t
imagine that would be ignored—but that the results were buried because they
might create a difficult legal and public relations problem for the
government."

The author of the 1944 CNS research proposal was Dr.
Harold C. Hodge, at the time chief of fluoride toxicology studies for the
University of Rochester division of the Manhattan Project. Nearly fifty years
later at the Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, Dr. Mullenix was introduced to a
gently ambling elderly man brought in to serve as a consultant on her CNS
research Harold C. Hodge. By then Hodge had achieved status emeritus as a world
authority on fluoride safety.

"But even though he was supposed to be helping
me," says Mullenix, "he never once mentioned the CNS work he had done
for the Manhattan Project."

The "black hole" in fluoride CNS research
since the days of the Manhattan Project is unacceptable to Mullenix, who refuses
to abandon the issue. "There is so much fluoride exposure now, and we
simply do not know what it is doing," she says. "You can’t just walk
away from this."

Dr. Antonio Noronha, an NIH scientific review advisor
familiar with Dr. Mullenix’s grant request, says her proposal was rejected by
a scientific peer-review group. He terms her claim of institutional bias against
fluoride CNS research "farfetched." He adds, "We strive very hard
at NIH to make sure politics does not enter the picture."

Fluoride and
National Security

A massive Manhattan Project pollution incident in New
Jersey sparks secret wartime U.S. research on fluoride safety.

The documentary trail begins at the height of World
War II, in 1944, when a severe pollution incident occurred downwind of the E.I.
du Pont de Nemours Company chemical factory in Deepwater, New Jersey. The
factory was then producing millions of pounds of fluoride for the Manhattan
Project, the ultra-secret U.S. military program racing to produce the world’s
first atomic bomb.

The farms downwind in Gloucester and Salem counties
were famous for their high quality produce—their peaches went directly to the
Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Their tomatoes were bought up by Campbell’s
Soup. But in the summer of 1943, the farmers began to report that their crops
were blighted, and that "something is burning up the peach crops around
here."

Poultry died after an all-night thunderstorm, they
reported. Farm workers who ate the produce they had picked sometimes vomited all
night and into the next day. "I remember our horses looked sick and were
too stiff to work," these reporters were told by Mildred Giordano, who was
a teenager at the time. Some cows were so crippled that they could not stand up,
and grazed by crawling on their bellies.

The account was confirmed in taped interviews, shortly
before he died, with Philip Sadtler of Sadtler Laboratories of Philadelphia, one
of the nation’s oldest chemical consulting firms.

Sadtler had personally conducted the initial
investigation of the damage.

Although the farmers did not know it, according to
once-secret documents obtained by

these reporters, the attention of the Manhattan
Project and the federal government was riveted on the New Jersey incident. After
the war’s end, in a secret Manhattan Project memo dated March 1, 1946, the
Project’s chief of fluoride toxicology studies, Harold C.

Hodge, worriedly wrote to his boss, Colonel Stafford
L. Warren, Chief of the Medical Division, about "problems associated with
the question of fluoride contamination of the atmosphere in a certain section of
New Jersey. There seem to be four distinct (though related) problems,"
continued Hodge;

"1. A question of injury of the peach crop in
1944.

"2. A report of extraordinary fluoride content of
vegetables grown in this area.

"3. A report of abnormally high fluoride content
in the blood of human individuals residing in this area.

"4. A report raising the question of serious
poisoning of horses and cattle in this area." The New Jersey farmers waited
until the war was over, then sued du Pont and the Manhattan Project for fluoride
damage—reportedly the first lawsuits against the U.S. A-bomb program.

Although seemingly trivial, the lawsuits shook the
government, the secret documents reveal.

Under the personal direction of Manhattan Project
chief Major General Leslie R. Groves, secret meetings were convened in
Washington, with compulsory attendance by scores of scientists and officials
from the U.S. War Department, the Manhattan Project, the Food and Drug
Administration, the Agriculture and Justice Departments, the U.S Army’s
Chemical Warfare Service and Edgewood Arsenal, the Bureau of Standards, and du
Pont lawyers.

Declassified memos of the meetings reveal a secret
mobilization of the full forces of the government to defeat the New Jersey
farmers:

These agencies "are making scientific
investigations to obtain evidence which may be used to protect the interest of
the Government at the trial of the suits brought by owners of peach orchards in
... New Jersey," stated Manhattan Project Lieutenant Colonel Cooper B.
Rhodes, in a memo c.c.’d to General Groves. "27 August 1945

"Subject: Investigation of Crop Damage at Lower
Penns Neck, New Jersey "To: The Commanding General, Army Service Forces,
Pentagon Building, Washington D.C. "At the request of the Secretary of War
the Department of Agriculture has agreed to cooperate in investigating
complaints of crop damage attributed... to fumes from a plant operated in
connection with the Manhattan Project."

Signed, L.R.
Groves, Major General, U.S. Army

"The Department of Justice is cooperating in the
defense of these suits," wrote General Groves in a February 28, 1946 memo
to the Chairman of the U. S. Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy.

Why the national-security emergency over a few
lawsuits by New Jersey farmers? In 1946 the United States had begun full-scale
production of atomic bombs. No other nation had yet tested a nuclear weapon, and
the A-bomb was seen as crucial for U.S leadership of the postwar world. The New
Jersey fluoride lawsuits were a serious roadblock to that strategy.

"The specter of endless lawsuits haunted the
military," writes Lansing Lamont in his acclaimed book about the first
atomic bomb test, "Day of Trinity,"

In the case of fluoride, "If the farmers won, it
would open the door to further suits, which might impede the bomb program’s
ability to use fluoride," said Jacqueline Kittrell, a Tennessee public
interest lawyer specializing in nuclear cases, who examined the declassified
fluoride documents. (Kittrell has represented plaintiffs in several human
radiation experiment cases.) She added, "The reports of human injury were
especially threatening, because of the potential for enormous settlements—not
to mention the PR problem."

Indeed, du Pont was particularly concerned about the
"possible psychologic reaction" to the New Jersey pollution incident,
according to a secret 1946 Manhattan Project memo. Facing a threat from the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) to embargo the region’s produce because of
"high fluoride content," du Pont dispatched its lawyers to the FDA
offices in Washington, where an agitated meeting ensued. According to a memo
sent next day to General Groves, Du Pont’s lawyer argued "that in view of
the pending suits... any action by the Food and Drug Administration... would
have a serious effect on the du Pont Company and would create a bad public
relations situation." After the meeting adjourned, Manhattan project
Captain John Davies approached the FDA’s Food Division chief and
"impressed upon Dr. White the substantial interest which the Government had
in claims which might arise as a result of action which might be taken by the
Food and Drug Administration."

There was no embargo. Instead, new tests for fluoride
in the New Jersey area would be conducted—not by the Department of
Agriculture—but by the Chemical Warfare Service -- because "work done by
the U. S. Army’s Chemical Warfare Service would carry the greatest weight as
evidence if... lawsuits are started by the complainants." The memo was
signed by General Groves.

Meanwhile, the public relations problem remained
unresolved—local citizens were in a panic about fluoride.

The farmer’s spokesman, Willard B. Kille, was
personally invited to dine with General Groves -- then known as "the man
who built the atomic bomb"—at his office at the War Department on March
26, 1946. Although he had been diagnosed with fluoride poisoning by his doctor,
Kille departed the luncheon convinced of the government’s good faith. The next
day he wrote to the general, wishing the other farmers could have been present,
he said, so "they too could come away with the feeling that their interests
in this particular matter were being safeguarded by men of the very highest type
whose integrity they could not question."

In a subsequent secret Manhattan Project memo, a
broader solution to the public relations problem was suggested by chief fluoride
toxicologist Harold C. Hodge. He wrote to the Medical Section chief, Colonel
Warren: "Would there be any use in making attempts to counteract the local
fear of fluoride on the part of residents of Salem and Gloucester counties
through lectures on F toxicology and perhaps the usefulness of F in tooth
health?"

Such lectures were indeed given, not only to New
Jersey citizens but to the rest of the nation throughout the Cold War.

The New Jersey farmers’ lawsuits were ultimately
stymied by the government’s refusal to reveal the key piece of information
that would have settled the case—how much fluoride du Pont had vented into the
atmosphere during the war. "Disclosure... would be injurious to the
military security of the United States," wrote Manhattan Project Major C.A.
Taney, Jr. The farmers were pacified with token financial settlements, according
to interviews with descendants still living in the area.

"All we knew is that du Pont released some
chemical that burned up all the peach trees around here," recalls Angelo
Giordano, whose father James was one of the original plaintiffs.

"The trees were no good after that, so we had to
give up on the peaches." Their horses and cows, too, acted stiff and walked
stiff, recalls his sister Mildred. "Could any of that have been the
fluoride?" she asked. (The symptoms she detailed to the authors are
cardinal signs of fluoride toxicity, according to veterinary toxicologists.)

The Giordano family, too, has been plagued by bone and
joint problems, Mildred adds.

Recalling the settlement received by the Giordanos,
Angelo told these reporters "my father said he got about $200."

The farmers were stonewalled in their search for
information, and their complaints have long since been forgotten. But they
unknowingly left their imprint on history—their claims of injury to their
health reverberated through the corridors of power in Washington, and triggered
intensive secret bomb-program research on the health effects of fluoride. A
secret 1945 memo from Manhattan Project Lt. Colonel Rhodes to General Groves
stated:

"Because of complaints that animals and humans
have been injured by hydrogen fluoride fumes in [the New Jersey] area, although
there are no pending suits involving such claims, the University of Rochester is
conducting experiments to determine the toxic effect of fluoride."

Much of the proof of fluoride’s safety in low doses
rests on the postwar work performed by the University of Rochester, in
anticipation of lawsuits against the bomb program for human injury.

Fluoride and
the Cold War

Delegating fluoride safety studies to the University
of Rochester was not surprising. During World War II the federal government had
become involved, for the first time, in large scale funding of scientific
research at government-owned labs and private colleges. Those early spending
priorities were shaped by the nation’s often-secret military needs.

The prestigious upstate New York college, in
particular, had housed a key wartime division of the Manhattan Project, studying
the health effects of the new "special materials," such as uranium,
plutonium, beryllium and fluoride, being used to make the atomic bomb. That work
continued after the war, with millions of dollars flowing from the Manhattan
Project and its successor organization, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).
(Indeed, the bomb left an indelible imprint on all of U.S. science in the late
1940’s and 50’s. Up to 90% of federal funds for university research came
from either the Defense Department or the AEC in this period, according to Noam
Chomsky’s 1996 book "The Cold War and the University.")

The University of Rochester medical school became a
revolving door for senior bomb program scientists. Postwar faculty included
Stafford Warren, the top medical officer of the Manhattan Project, and Harold
Hodge, chief of fluoride research for the bomb program.

But this marriage of military secrecy and medical
science bore deformed offspring. The University of Rochester’s classified
fluoride studies—code-named Program F—were conducted at its Atomic Energy
Project (AEP), a top-secret facility funded by the AEC and housed in Strong
Memorial Hospital. It was there that one of the most notorious human radiation
experiments of the Cold War took place, in which unsuspecting hospital patients
were injected with toxic doses of radioactive plutonium. Revelation of this
experiment in a Pulitzer prize-winning account by Eileen Wellsome led to a 1995
U.S. Presidential investigation, and a multimillion-dollar cash settlement for
victims.

Program F was not about children’s teeth. It grew
directly out of litigation against the bomb program and its main purpose was to
furnish scientific ammunition which the government and its nuclear contractors
could use to defeat lawsuits for human injury.

Program F’s director was none other than Harold C.
Hodge, who had led the Manhattan Project investigation of alleged human injury
in the New Jersey fluoride-pollution incident.

Program F’s purpose is spelled out in a classified
1948 report. It reads: "To supply evidence useful in the litigation arising
from an alleged loss of a fruit crop several years ago, a number of problems
have been opened. Since excessive blood fluoride levels were reported in human
residents of the same area, our principal effort has been devoted to describing
the relationship of blood fluorides to toxic effects."

The litigation referred to, of course, and the claims
of human injury were against the bomb program and its contractors. Thus, the
purpose of Program F was to obtain evidence useful in litigation against the
bomb program. The research was being conducted by the defendants.

The potential conflict of interest is clear. If lower
dose ranges were found hazardous by Program F, it might have opened the bomb
program and its contractors to lawsuits for injury to human health, as well as
public outcry.

Comments lawyer Kittrell: "This and other
documents indicate that the University of Rochester’s fluoride research grew
out of the New Jersey lawsuits and was performed in anticipation of lawsuits
against the bomb program for human injury. Studies undertaken for litigation
purposes by the defendants would not be considered scientifically acceptable
today," adds Kittrell, "because of their inherent bias to prove the
chemical safe."

Unfortunately, much of the proof of fluoride’s
safety rests on the work performed by Program F Scientists at the University of
Rochester. During the postwar period that university emerged as the leading
academic center for establishing the safety of fluoride, as well as its
effectiveness in reducing tooth decay, according to Dental School spokesperson
William H. Bowen, M.D. The key figure in this research, Bowen said, was Harold
C. Hodge—who also became a leading national proponent of fluoridating public
drinking water.

Program F’s interest in water fluoridation was not
just "to counteract the local fear of fluoride on the part of
residents," as Hodge had earlier written. The bomb program needed human
studies, as they had needed human studies for plutonium, and adding fluoride to
public water supplies provided one opportunity.

The A Bomb
Program and Water Fluoridation

Bomb-program scientists played a prominent if
unpublicized role in the nation’s first-planned water fluoridation experiment,
in Newburgh, New York. The Newburgh Demonstration Project is considered the most
extensive study of the health effects of fluoridation, supplying much of the
evidence that low doses are safe for children’s bones, and good for their
teeth.

Planning began in 1943 with the appointment of a
special New York State Health Department committee to study the advisability of
adding fluoride to Newburgh’s drinking water. The chairman of the committee
was Dr. Hodge, then chief of fluoride toxicity studies for the Manhattan
Project.

Subsequent members included Henry L. Barnett, a
captain in the Project’s Medical section, and John W. Fertig, in 1944 with the
office of Scientific Research and Development, the Pentagon group which sired
the Manhattan Project. Their military affiliations were kept secret: Hodge was
described as a pharmacologist, Barnett as a pediatrician. Placed in charge of
the Newburgh project was David B. Ast, chief dental officer of the State Health
Department. Ast had participated in a key secret wartime conference on fluoride
held by the Manhattan Project, and later worked with Dr. Hodge on the
Project’s investigation of human injury in the New Jersey incident, according
to once-secret memos.

The committee recommended that Newburgh be
fluoridated. It also selected the types of medical studies to be done, and
"provided expert guidance" for the duration of the experiment. The key
question to be answered was: "Are there any cumulative effects—
beneficial or otherwise, on tissues and organs other than the teeth—of
long-continued ingestion of such small concentrations...?" According to the
declassified documents, this was also key information sought by the bomb
program, which would require long-continued exposure of workers and communities
to fluoride throughout the Cold War.

In May 1945, Newburgh’s water was fluoridated, and
over the next ten years its residents were studied by the State Health
Department. In tandem, Program F conducted its own secret studies, focusing on
the amounts of fluoride Newburgh citizens retained in their blood and
tissues—key information sought by the bomb program: "Possible toxic
effects of fluoride were in the forefront of consideration," the advisory
committee stated. Health Department personnel cooperated, shipping blood and
placenta samples to the Program F team at the University of Rochester. The
samples were collected by Dr. David B. Overton, the Department’s chief of
pediatric studies at Newburgh.

The final report of the Newburgh Demonstration
Project, published in 1956 in the Journal of the American Dental Association,
concluded that "small concentrations" of fluoride were safe for U.S.
citizens. The biological proof—"based on work performed ... at the
University of Rochester Atomic Energy Project"—was delivered by Dr.
Hodge.

Today, news that scientists from the atomic bomb
program secretly shaped and guided the Newburgh fluoridation experiment, and
studied the citizen’s blood and tissue samples, is greeted with incredulity.

"I’m shocked—beyond words," said
present-day Newburgh Mayor Audrey Carey, commenting on these reporters’
findings. "It reminds me of the Tuskeegee experiment that was done on
syphilis patients down in Alabama."

As a child in the early 1950’s, Mayor Carey was
taken to the old firehouse on Broadway in Newburgh, which housed the Public
Health clinic. There, doctors from the Newburgh fluoridation project studied her
teeth, and a peculiar fusion of two finger bones on her left hand she had been
born with. Today, adds Carey, her granddaughter has white dental-fluorosis marks
on her front teeth.

Mayor Carey wants answers from the government about
the secret history of fluoride, and the Newburgh fluoridation experiment.
"I absolutely want to pursue it," she said. "It is appalling to
do any kind of experimentation and study without people’s knowledge and
permission."

Contacted by these reporters, the director of the
Newburgh experiment, David B. Ast, says he was unaware Manhattan Project
scientists were involved. "If I had known, I would have been certainly
investigating why, and what the connection was," he said. Did he know that
blood and placenta samples from Newburgh were being sent to bomb program
researchers at the University of Rochester? "I was not aware of it,"
Ast replied. Did he recall participating in the Manhattan Project’s secret
wartime conference on fluoride in January 1944, or going to New Jersey with Dr.
Hodge to investigate human injury in the du Pont cases as secret memos state? He
said he had no recollection of these events.

A spokesperson for the University of Rochester Medical
Center, Bob Loeb, confirmed that blood and tissue samples from Newburgh had been
tested by the University’s Dr. Hodge.

On the ethics of secretly studying U.S. citizens to
obtain information useful in litigation against the A-bomb program, he said,
"that’s a question we cannot answer." He referred inquiries to the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), successor to the Atomic Energy Commission.

A spokesperson for the DOE in Washington, Jayne Brody,
confirmed that a review of DOE files indicated that a "significant
reason" for fluoride experiments conducted at the University of Rochester
after the war was "impending litigation between the du Pont company and
residents of New Jersey areas." However, she added, "DOE has found no
documents to indicate that fluoride research was done to protect the Manhattan
Project or its contractors from lawsuits."

On Manhattan Project involvement in Newburgh, the
spokesperson stated, "Nothing that we have suggests that the DOE or
predecessor agencies—especially the Manhattan Project— authorized fluoride
experiments to be performed on children in the 1940’s."

When told that the reporters had several documents
that directly tied the Manhattan Project’s successor agency at the University
of Rochester, the AEP, to the Newburgh experiment, the DOE spokesperson conceded
her study was confined to "the available universe" of documents. Two
days later spokesperson Jayne Brody faxed a statement for clarification:
"My search only involved the documents that we collected as part of our
human radiation experiments project—fluoride was not part of our research
effort."

"Most significantly," the statement
continued, "relevant documents may be in a classified collection at the DOE
Oak Ridge National Laboratory known as the Records Holding Task Group.
"This collection consists entirely of classified documents removed from
other files for the purpose of classified document accountability many years
ago," and was "a rich source of documents for the human radiation
experiments project," she said.

The crucial question arising from this investigation
is: Were adverse health findings from Newburgh and other bomb-program fluoride
studies suppressed?

All AEC funded studies had to be declassified before
publication in civilian medical and dental journals. Where are the original
classified versions? The transcript of one of the major secret scientific
conferences of World War II - on "fluoride metabolism"—is missing
from the files of the U.S. National Archives. Participants in the conference
included key figures who promoted the safety of fluoride and water fluoridation
to the public after the war—Harold Hodge of the Manhattan Project, David B.
Ast of the Newburgh Project, and U.S. Public Health Service dentist H.Trendley
Dean, popularly known as the "father of fluoridation." "If it is
missing from the files, it is probably still classified," National Archives
librarians said.

A 1944 World War II Manhattan Project classified
report on water fluoridation is missing from the files of the University of
Rochester Atomic Energy Project, the U.S. National Archives, and the Nuclear
Repository at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The next four numerically
consecutive documents are also missing, while the remainder of the "MP-1500
series" is present. "Either those documents are still classified, or
they’ve been "disappeared" by the government," says Clifford
Honicker, Executive Director of the American Environmental Health Studies
Project in Knoxville, Tennessee, which provided key evidence in the public
exposure and prosecution of U.S. human radiation experiments.

Was information suppressed? These reporters made what
appears to be the first discovery of the original classified version of a
fluoride safety study by bomb program scientists. A censored version of this
study was later published in the August 1948 Journal of the American Dental
Association. Comparison of the secret with the published version indicates that
the U.S. AEC did censor damaging information on fluoride, to the point of
tragicomedy.

This was a study of the dental and physical health of
workers in a factory producing fluoride for the A-bomb program, conducted by a
team of dentists from the Manhattan Project.

The secret version reports that most of the men had no
teeth left. The published version reports only that the men had fewer cavities.

The secret version says the men had to wear rubber
boots because the fluoride fumes disintegrated the nails in their shoes. The
published version does not mention this.

The secret version says the fluoride may have acted
similarly on the men’s teeth, contributing to their toothlessness. The
published version omits this statement.

The published version concludes that "the men
were unusually healthy, judged from both a medical and dental point of
view."

Asked for comment on the early links of the Manhattan
Project to water fluoridation, Dr. Harold Slavkin, Director of the National
Institute for Dental Research, the U.S. agency which today funds fluoride
research, said, "I wasn’t aware of any input from the Atomic Energy
Commission," Nevertheless, he insisted, fluoride’s efficacy and safety in
the prevention of dental cavities over the last fifty years is well-proved.
"The motivation of a scientist is often different from the outcome,"
he reflected. "I do not hold a prejudice about where the knowledge comes
from."

After comparing the secret and published versions of
the censored study, toxicologist Phyllis Mullenix commented, "This makes me
ashamed to be a scientist." Of other Cold War-era fluoride safety studies,
she asks, "Were they all done like this?"

Archival research by Clifford Honicker

ABOUT THE
AUTHORS:

Joel Griffiths lives in New York City. Author of a
book on radiation hazards, he has contributed numerous articles to medical and
popular publications. Chris Bryson, who holds a masters degree in Journalism, is
an independent reporter with ten years’ professional experience. He has worked
with BBC Radio and Public Television in New York, plus numerous publications,
including the Christian Science Monitor and the Mansfield Guardian.

Additional
notes: Harold C. Hodge and the U.S. Army

Dr. Hodge is deceased. However, in 1979 his chapter in
a book titled "Continuing Evaluation of the Use of Fluorides" set the
record straight. With regard to the "safe" dosage of fluoride for
children, Hodge wrote: "The most important and widely disregarded fact
about dental fluorosis is this: no safe established daily intake exists, i.e.,
the maximal amount in mg fluoride which consumed daily does NOT produce
cosmetically damaging extensive white areas or brown stain in some individuals
has not been fixed."

In the same publication, Dr. Hodge also corrected his
figures for crippling skeletal fluorosis.

In his calculations made during the early 1950s it
appears, although not spelled out, that Hodge had neglected to convert pounds to
kilograms. As a result, most reviews which contain the "crippling daily
dose of fluoride," including the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services 1991 document, Review of Fluoride: Benefits and Risks, as well as the
current Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) and the new Dietary Reference
Intakes (DRI) -- another document from the Institute of Medicine—use 20-80
mg/day figures. (Although these documents refer to Hodge, they completely ignore
Hodge’s 1979 correction of the older erroneous figures.)

Sandra Schlicker, study director for the DRI, has
acknowledged her understanding of Hodge’s error, as well as the correction in
1979; yet, offers no explanation for using the older erroneous figures. In
addition, this latest report dismisses the correction made by another NAS/NRC
panel in 1993, falsely claiming the corrected figures for "Crippling"
were meant to apply only to the earlier non-crippling stages of the disease.

The bottom line is this: At currently reported intake
levels, excess fluoride from multiple sources has surpassed the quantity known
to cause serious adverse health effects within about forty years. (i.e., 5
mg/day will cause crippling deformities of the spine and major joints) Within
about twenty years, with a daily intake of 5 mg, the symptoms to be expected
include chronic joint pain as well as brittle bones.

Knowing full well that five milligrams of fluoride
daily would be expected to produce phase 3 crippling skeletal fluorosis in the
average individual after about 40 years, the committee has determined that 10
milligrams of fluoride daily is "tolerable." The question,
"Tolerable to whom?" remains unanswered.

More about the
Army

Although facilities had been constructed to provide
fluoride in the drinking water system at Ft. Detrick, key components corroded to
the point that the system was shut down.

Reinstating fluoridation became subject to regulations
involving an environmental assessment.

On 11 December 1996 Commander, Colonel Henry O. Tuell,
III, wrote to U.S. Army Medical Command, Fort Sam Houston, Texas. In this memo
Colonel Tuell states: "...recent research and findings regarding efficacy
of fluoridation and the adverse health effects, could be serious."

In other words, drinking fluoridated water may be
unsafe.

As yet, the Army post at Fort Detrick,
(Frederick, Maryland) remains unfluoridated.--------------------------------

What Is Fluoride?

WHAT IS FLUORIDE?

Fluoride is any combination of elements containing the fluoride ion.
In its elemental form, fluorine is a pale yellow, highly toxic and corrosive
gas. In nature, fluorine is found combined with minerals as fluorides. It is
the most chemically active nonmetallic element of all the elements and also
has the most reactive electro-negative ion. Because of this extreme
reactivity, fluorine is never found in nature as an uncombined element.

Fluorine is a member of group VIIa of the periodic table. It readily displaces
other halogens—such as chlorine, bromine and iodine—from their mineral
salts. With hydrogen it forms hydrogen fluoride gas which, in a water
solution, becomes hydrofluoric acid.

There was no US commercial production of fluorine before World War II.
A requirement for fluorine in the processing of uranium ores, needed for the
atomic bomb, prompted its manufacture.(6)

Fluorine compounds or fluorides are listed by the US Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) as among the top 20 of 275 substances
that pose the most significant threat to human health.(7) In Australia, the
National Pollutant Inventory (NPI) recently considered 400 substances for
inclusion on the NPI reporting list. A risk ranking was given based on health
and environmental hazard identification and human and environmental exposure
to the substance. Some substances were grouped together at the same rank to
give a total of 208 ranks. Fluoride compounds were ranked 27th out of the 208
ranks.(8)

Fluorides, hydrogen fluoride and fluorine have been found in at least
130, 19, and 28 sites, respectively, of 1,334 National Priorities List sites
identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).9 Consequently, under
the provisions of the Superfund Act (CRECLA, 1986), a compilation of
information about fluorides, hydrogen fluoride and fluorine and their effects
on health was required. This publication appeared in 1993.(9)

Fluorides are cumulative toxins. The fact that fluorides accumulate in
the body is the reason that US law requires the Surgeon General to set a
Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for fluoride content in public water supplies
as determined by the EPA. This requirement is specifically aimed at avoiding a
condition known as Crippling Skeletal Fluorosis (CSF), a disease thought to
progress through three stages. The MCL, designed to prevent only the third and
crippling stage of this disease, is set at 4ppm or 4mg per liter. It is
assumed that people will retain half of this amount (2mg), and therefore 4mg
per liter is deemed ``safe." Yet a daily dose of 2-8mg is known to cause
the third crippling stage of CSF.(10,11)

In 1998 EPA scientists, whose job and legal duty it is to set the
Maximum Contaminant Level, declared that this 4ppm level was set fraudulently
by outside forces in a decision that omitted 90 percent of the data showing
the mutagenic properties of fluoride.(12)

The Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products, 5th Edition
(1984) gives lead a toxicity rating of 3 to 4 (3 = moderately toxic, 4 = very
toxic) and the EPA has set 0.015 ppm as the MCL for lead in drinking
water—with a goal of 0.0ppm. The toxicity rating for fluoride is 4, yet the
MCL for fluoride is currently set at 4.0ppm, over 250 times the permissable
level for lead

Thank you so much for having such a page on the research on
Fluorides...Here in Quebec not much exists on it espescially in French
...So...some of my work will be to translate some of this important
material into french and spread it around on the Web and in my
conferences. Of course I have already given your URL to all of my
E-Group and will refer it to everyone I can..in France also. It is a
world wide plaigue. So... good luck with your goals and keep up the
mission...In support and frienship, Francois Pierre Milette aka Nenki.--------------